There have been a handful of anomalies this season that have prevented Washington’s baseball team from climbing to the top of the 2-A Eastern Plains Conference standings. The Pam Pack had a chance on Wednesday to tie North Pitt — a team it had already beaten on the road — for the No. 2 spot in the league.

Things didn’t go as planned as the visiting Panthers cruised to a 10-2 win. Coach Kevin Leggett lamented that the team, strangely enough, has struggled picking up wins against teams it’s already beaten.

“We should have played better, but we didn’t show up,” Leggett said following Wednesday’s loss. “There’s some kind of thing we have where, if we play a good team and win the first time, we don’t show up the second time. It’s happened every single time this year. I don’t know if it’s the youth or what, but we’ve got to get it out of our system.”

Washington had previously won a thriller at North Pitt, 7-6, before dropping Wednesday’s lopsided contest. It was the same story when the Pam Pack traveled to Farmville Central on April 22. The boys had already edged the Jaguars, 4-2, at home. However, they got demolished, 10-0, on the back end of the home-and-home series.

It happened in non-conference play, too. Washington handled Riverside, 7-2, on enemy territory early on in the season. The Pam Pack went on to drop a close rematch, 5-4, at home. Washington also lost rematches with Holmes and Ayden-Grifton.

In all, there were five instances this season in which Washington won the first meeting and lost the second. Taking two or three of those games could have made the difference in the Pam Pack ranking second in the league and earning a more promising seed come the playoffs.

Leggett believes the issue comes down to maturity. Neill Jennings and Logan Winstead are the lone seniors on the Pam Pack squad. The roster is mostly comprised of upperclassmen, but sophomores Fredrick Holscher, Tyler Harrell, Cooper Anderson and Chris Sulc have all played important roles this season.

“It’s mental, maturity and age,” Leggett said. “They’ve got to grow up quickly. … Hopefully it just hits them and it just clicks. I can’t force them to show up.”

Even the upperclassmen on the roster are in unchartered waters of sorts. The team had won 15 games heading into Friday’s season finale at North Johnston. It hadn’t won 15 games in the three years prior combined.

“That’s the thing. This is new for everybody,” Leggett said. “We only have two seniors and no one has ever been in a winning situation for Washington baseball, except at the JV level. They’re kind of learning together and they’ve all got to get used to the winning thing.”

Thankfully, Washington doesn’t have to worry too much about running into a team it’s already beaten. Once the playoffs begin, it’s likely that the Pam Pack will be matched up with a team it has yet to face.

Now the boys just need to work on storming out of the gate. Slow starts have been their undoing.

“We can’t have sluggish starts,” Leggett said. “There were errors in the first inning (against North Pitt) and metal mistakes. A couple of times we didn’t cover the bag we were supposed to cover. Just the little things. … When you start off in a hole, it makes it hard. Flipping the switch works sometimes, but you can’t always count on the switch flipping. You’ve got to start off good.”